Remembering ‘87 Lady Miller Krissi Davis

Photos provided
Noblesville High School graduate Krissi Davis, a senior captain for the NHS Lady Millers 1987 undefeated state champion basketball team, died on Saturday in her sleep. She was 51. Services will be Friday.

Pete Smith emailed The Times this photo of Krissi Davis from Dec. 30, 2018, “when she was thrilled for her college coach Muffett McGraw to accomplish her 900th win as a head coach in college. “As in her joking way, she put on the card (which Davis held up in the photo), “I’m proud to help get 87 of them.”

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Many of us thought it was a bad dream when we heard that Krissi Davis died in her sleep on Friday night.
She was senior captain for the Noblesville High School Lady Millers 1987 undefeated state champion basketball team.
She was an Indiana All-Star, a two-time inductee into the Indiana High School Athletic Association Basketball Hall of Fame and a four-year letterman and two-time MVP for the University of Notre Dame Women’s Basketball Team.
At NHS, she scored a school record 1,269 career points leading teams to 81-17 career record, including four sectionals, two regionals and a semi-state title, besides the state championship..
While I never covered sports when I took a job at The Noblesville Ledger in 1986, I did remember Davis being on our Sports pages.
“Krissi Davis” became a household name when she led her team to the state finals, and probably even before that.
For Chris Owen Mills of Noblesville, she first heard of Davis in fourth grade.
“Our gym teacher worked at North Elementary and Forest Hill,” the 1987 NHS championship team player said on Monday. “He talked about how fast she was and good at sports. I had no idea how good until I met her in sixth grade.”
But Mills doesn’t want Davis to be remembered “as just a great athlete.” But as a friend and mentor.
“She was an amazing person that knew just how to support those around her. I watched her mentor all the young players on the team and how she would stay calm in all the tough times. She cared deeply about everyone she came in contact with,” she said.
“I remember struggling with some basketball issues, and she came to me and told me that life was more than sports, and that I couldn’t let what was happening on the court take my confidence in life away,” Mills said. “She just got life.”
Kristen Lammers Holland, NHS class of ‘88, who played on the 1987 Lady Millers championship team, said on Monday, “We are all struggling to grasp the huge loss of our leader of the incredible 1987 state championship run.”
The passing of Davis was “an enormous loss for our team,” she said.
“Krissi cared about each of us, from the teammates lining up on the jump circle at the beginning of a game to those of us that spent a lot of time running other teams’ offenses. She demonstrated hard work day in and day out. She was serious about the work we showed up to do in the gym day in and day out, and she was the driving force behind the team and our results,” Lammers Holland said.
“We were fortunate to be together as a team in 2017 as she, personally, was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, as well as our 1987 championship team,” said the West Chester, Ohio, resident. She had been inducted 10 years earlier, in 2007, into the Hamilton County Basketball Hall of Fame.
“The bond we have as a team is unique and special. We genuinely share in one another’s life success, and we remain here for one another when things are tough,” she said.
While Lammers Holland is sad this week, she said, “Krissi would want our chins up. She would want us moving forward and living each day our best.”
Davis had just celebrated her 51st birthday on Wednesday.
She went out with friend Pete Smith on Thursday, to talk about a fundraiser at the Noblesville Elks Lodge, where both were members. She was expected to meet her family on Saturday, but she never showed up. Her brother, Mike Davis, found her at home in her bed; apparently she had died in her sleep Friday night.
Pete Smith, who coached NHS Millers boys basketball from 1991 to 1994, said, “It’s a very sad Monday to start the week off. It’s just so hard to lose a friend like Krissi after just seeing her and with no thoughts that she could pass away so soon.”
He said, “She was a friend to all of Noblesville, and it’s impacted the Notre Dame Women’s Basketball family as well,” said Smith, who expects many of her teammates and coaches to attend the funeral services, then a Celebration of Life Friday night at the Noblesville Elks Lodge. He is an Exalted Ruler at the Elks Lodge, where in 2018 Davis was named 2018 Elk Member of the Year.
This year, Smith asked Davis to coordinate the 34th annual Steve Renner Charity Golf Outing for Cancer Research. She was a great leader of the fundraising committee, for which I attended a planning meeting in July for the August event, which had a new silent auction.“My thought and my goal on the silent auction is to try to get more people, the public, aware of what the Elks does ... Come in and see what we do. Come in and see the comradery and the friendship you can have here,” said Davis, who was so straight forward, organized and polite at the meeting. Smith touted Davis for helping the fundraiser bring in the most dollars in its history. On Thursday night, they were meeting to talk about ways to make the 2020 event even more successful.
Smith sent out a bulletin to Elks members on Monday morning, informing them of their loss of Krissi Davis.
He wrote, “The Noblesville Elks Lodge has lost a great friend and member. I cannot express to you how great of a citizen she was to Noblesville, to our lodge, and what a fun, great person she was to be around and with....”
Smith emailed me a photo of Davis with the 1987 State Championship trophy. He also sent a photo from Dec. 30, 2018, “when she was thrilled for her college coach Muffett McGraw to accomplish her 900th win as a head coach in college. “As in her joking way, she put on the card (which Davis held up in the photo), “I’m proud to help get 87 of them.”
Kristina Marie “Krissi” Davis, known to family and close friends as “ChiChi,” was born Sept. 4, 1968. She died on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2019. She was 51.
Services will be Friday at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Noblesville, with visitation from noon to 3 p.m., Catholic mass to follow at 3 p.m., and entombment at Crownland Cemetery at 4:30 p.m. A Celebration of Life will begin at 6 p.m. at the Noblesville Elks Lodge, where all are invited to wear their Notre Dame gear to honor her legacy.
In lieu of flowers, a NHS Scholarship will be established in her name. Contributions may be made to Best Friends Animal Society, because she loved animals, particularly her two canines, Maggie and Roxy, and spent many hours volunteering at the Humane Society for Hamilton County.
Rest in peace Krissi Davis.
-Contact Betsy Reason at betsy@thetimes24-7.com. Read Krissi Davis’ obituary in today’s edition of The Times.